One of the drawbacks of SPIHT and variable length coders is their sensitivity to channel errors. The compressed bitstream SPIHT and other set partition coders (SPCs) divide naturally into two components: a significance map that conveys location information; and a value bitstream that conveys intensity information of signs and lower order bits of wavelet coefficients. A single bit error in the significance map can cause a catastrophe in image reconstruction due to error propagation. The earlier the error the worse is the degradation.